


the voice of my own heart breaking

by heavensabove



Series: anika trevelyan: alternate circumstances [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, already existing fic but from the other point of view, reflecting, regretting, repenting, the three r's of blackwall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29045643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavensabove/pseuds/heavensabove
Summary: He is not a selfless man.
Relationships: Blackwall | Thom Rainier/Female Inquisitor, Blackwall/Female Inquisitor, Blackwall/Female Trevelyan (Dragon Age)
Series: anika trevelyan: alternate circumstances [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810114
Kudos: 8





	the voice of my own heart breaking

**Author's Note:**

> (Late) companion fic to [Undoing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25003087).

Woven up in the rafters are spiderwebs, large and billowing like torn sheets, connected from one beam to another like sloping gossamer paths. In the dim light of the moon creeping in from the windows and gaps rotted open in the wood, they look like apparitions hovering over him, staring down in solemn silence.

Blackwall blinks and reaches up. It’s a trick of the eye that they look so close that he could touch them, feel them softly against his fingers, push until he goes through them and they wrap around his digits like thread. They’re very far away, in reality.

They had taken a walk around the spring in the Forbidden Oasis because she couldn’t get the spiders out of her mind. All evening, she had sat in front of the campfire, cringing and shuddering and willing the sights and sounds away. He had been amused but he had also wanted to comfort her, to alleviate her distress. 

Their feet edged the warm water and their fingers skimmed over the craggy surface of cliff-bottoms. She looked at him and smiled, her eyes alight with affection. She told him how she'd always been afraid of spiders, so frightened by even small ones that she would cry and throw fits as a child at the sight of them.

That's how it was, then: she let him read her, know her. She was his to explore, his to soothe, his...

Blackwall sits up and rubs his face, suddenly very angry at himself. He swings his feet to the ground and looks out towards the stairs, where the light from the fire has gone. He goes down and sees the hearth smoking away, small particles of embers glaring at him.

Dennet must’ve left just now. He retrieves kindling and drops them in the hearth, lights a new fire. He turns and faces the work table, where the griffon sits perfectly lifeless.

There’s someone there at his side. He freezes for a moment, holding his breath. He turns just his head very slowly, his heart throbbing fast, painfully. That his mind could betray him in such a harsh way leaves him dizzy when he finds nothing but empty air.

* * *

Had he been a strong man, a truly chivalrous man, he would’ve torn himself away from her. Is it love truly when it’s based on a lie, all of it? But when he tries to condemn himself by calling it base lust, a sharp pain lances through him and he feels breathless. Then the taunts wash up, wash over him, the taunts from his own mind: doesn’t he know what lust is? Who is he fooling? If a body was all he needed, he wouldn’t have lived as a hermit for years on end.

No, his sin is bigger. Knowing that he’s nothing but a well of ruin, he dragged her inside. He ruined her. He took her heart when nothing of hers was his to take. Then he broke her heart, because once he had taken it there was nothing else he could do with it.

But she had looked so beautiful that day. Glowing from within, her skin an ornament of gold. Her eyes gentle and shimmering. Wisps of her hair framing her face, her lips slightly parted as she questioned him without speaking. She always knew, somehow, when his gut churned and the storms of guilt and self-hatred rose up inside him.

He didn’t want to. He didn’t. Something inside him always says: then why did you invite her? And he always responds: because I would never see her again otherwise. But the thing just chortles, says: and that would have been such a horrible thing?

It’s right. It’s always right. But it would’ve been unbearable for him. He is not a selfless man. He wanted to be close to her one last time. He is not a selfless man, or he would’ve left it there at the tavern. He is not a selfless man.

* * *

Memories of her come like arrows, unceasing, striking him without warning as he tries to live through a day, an hour. Mostly, a flash of her smile, shy and happy. Sometimes her warm eyes, his reflection in them making him like the sight of himself. In the dark, he’ll hear a dead man’s stolen name slip in quietly between crickets and the snores of mounts.

It feels violating to think of the night he made love to her, but there are times he can’t stop the images, the sensations, from appearing in his mind, tingling along his nerve endings. The feel of her lips dragging up his chest and throat, her cries, her fingers and palms sliding over his sweat-slicked back, her tight heat snug around him as if it wasn’t merely incidental that she had waited all these years and found him to give herself to.

Thom Rainier had tried for a time to find meaning through sex until giving up and having sex just because he could, just because it was available. Wouldn’t he have been delighted to know it could feel like this, too? Wouldn’t he have taken it with both hands like the wretched, covetous piece of shit he was? 

Rainier is like the dead thing that remains because it’s been broken down and reabsorbed. He runs through Blackwall’s veins like infected blood. It’s him who luxuriates in the idea of being her first, him who remembers with relish her skin against Blackwall’s skin, him who replays the sound of her moaning Blackwall’s name over and over and over.

It’s shameful that he has this. It’s shameful that she’ll carry this taint forever. She deserves - she deserved - so much better.

But when he sits awake in the stillness of his existence, staring out at the empty dark, and remembers the way her breath tickled his jaw as she said she loved him, he can’t stop the swell of gratitude, can't stop himself from thanking the Maker for letting him hear it.

* * *

“Plenty of fishies in the sea,” Sera says and gestures all around. “Look at that one right there. Quite good up top…a  _ handful _ , yanno?” She points her finger at a serving girl. Her finger swerves around everywhere. Blackwall does not look up to see. It doesn’t matter; not just the women’s, but everyone’s faces blur together. The tavern sounds come garbled like noises from broken instruments.

Sera pushes him. “Hey, hey, how long are you planning to stay like this?” And the way she says it, the way she talks, dredges up an anger in him that he hadn’t thought he could feel towards her. She’s being playful like she always is, trying to be helpful in the only way she knows how, but every word out of her mouth feels like a handful of salt.

Blackwall pushes away his tankard and starts for the entrance. Sera follows him to the door, but he turns and says sharply, “Don’t.” The way she stares at him betrays her shock, a slight chagrin like he’s never seen creeping into her expression. He’ll feel bad later, but for now, he needs to go.

In the quiet of the stables, he comes back to himself. He had forgotten how pleasurable a companion solitude is. There are no stares here and no whispers, no well meaning mockery.

He looks at the griffon. It's the only thing of any value, he thinks, that he's put out in the world. The only thing he's created when all his life he's spent destroying. Sometimes, when he's finished another round of work on it and he's standing there in the dimly lit space with the tools in his hands, he thinks of throwing it in the fire.

He thinks of it more than he thinks of leaving, though that has crossed his mind. Few other than Sera particularly want him here. Most who mill outside, those who would engage him in idle chatter at least occasionally, now only look at him with barely disguised contempt or don't look at him at all. People he fought shoulder to shoulder with disdain him.

All things he's earned, but leaving is not about his own comfort; it's about sparing Skyhold his presence. What he wants to do, the atonement he wants, requires him to be everywhere but not here.

The only reason he remains is because he's a selfish man.

* * *

“I heard the Inquisitor is sick.”

Blackwall turns to the doorway. An elven woman and a dwarven man stand a few feet outside, engrossed in their talk.

The woman continues, “No one has seen her around in a long time."

“Do you expect her to dawdle about as you and I and the rabble?” the man chuckles.

“But she was still seen outside occasionally!” The woman shakes her head. “For certain, something has happened.”

Blackwall heads up to the loft and their chatter becomes distant, but the woman's words remain wedged in his mind. It's not any right of his to be concerned. He has no right to go back and ask about her. His body thrums with restlessness as he sits, cradles his face in his hands. His jaw clenches and unclenches.

If it's the Mark? He's heard things about it from Solas, heard gossip among the healers. It nearly killed her and there's no guarantee it still isn't killing her.

He gets up and stares out the window. There are innumerable people to care for her and to find solutions. Who would allow her to die? But who, also, could stop death?

Blackwall shakes his head. It's stupidity. Do sicknesses other than deadly not exist? She could have a cold, or at most a fever. She could be resting before an expedition. She could be thinking about what he did and trying to heal the wound he opened.

How audacious of him to think that it would be about him at all. He laughs, a short and hollow chuckle. Does he cross her mind still? The love he had seen in her eyes had always transfixed him; he had never thought love could be so engulfing, so fathomless. She seemed to love him in such a way that dissolved her being and his. It was not a love that could be comprehended and reproduced by mercantile writers and poets---a love that felt sometimes like a cooling river and sometimes like being too close to the sun.

She had said, "I can't ever trust you again," and everything had gone suddenly colorless and scentless, tasteless. She had looked away and stared hard at some space far from him, like she wanted to rinse him out of herself and was beginning the process, now if only he would leave.

But she had also said that she would always love him. It's what he clings to though he tries not to, what he consoles himself with when he awakens in the dead of night after some foolish and wishful dream. How could she not think of him even a little, then?

It's not new that he passes the hours of sleep awake with his head full of her, but his insomnia is suffused with anxiety that is.

* * *

Sera comes to see him one morning and cuts him off when he tries to apologize. She babbles on rapidly and excitedly about topics that mean nothing but that thankfully steer clear of romance. He's glad to have her, even if he can find little to say in return.

"Sorry to say, but you look even bluer than usual. Like 'strangled to death' blue." Sera raises an eyebrow. "Can I get you to look like you're living? Just a little weensy bit?"

Blackwall stares back at her blankly. He wants to ask her, because he knows how much she hears, how very many things she keeps track of, but where should he begin? How should he phrase his question? And if he even should ask? 

And then Sera says, "Did you hear all that shite about Quizzy? Is that it?" Blackwall stiffens for a second, then lowers his eyes. One hand curls and uncurls. Sera sighs in exasperation. "Oh come  _ on _ , you know it's all hot air. They're just fartin' out their damn mouths."

"I worry," Blackwall responds quietly.

"Understatement," Sera says wryly.

"I have no right to, I know. I shouldn't be thinking about it. But I..."

"Oh, stop it."

"I know I'm wrong."

"No, you're bloody not," Sera growls. "You act like you have no right to do anything. Don't you love her? Of course you should think about her."

Blackwall looks at her again. "Do you know she's alright?" 

"Well...haven't seen her around."

"Then..." He swallows. "Then what they're saying?"

"It's hogwash, innit? It's all probably nonsense. Like I said, they talk and talk, but their heads aren't in it with their tongues." A crease forms between Sera's brows. "But it's confirmation you want, right? It's confirmation you'll get, then."

Blackwall starts but Sera's already striding away, too fast for him to catch up even if he wanted to. Deep down, he doesn't; deep down, he wants to know. He wants this turmoil within him quietened, and he wants to drink up any new stream of information, anything about her. That even once she should flow into him again, in any way - that's what he wants.

* * *

He doesn't hope for more. He doesn't hope for anything. All day, he carries out the string of meaningless actions that make up his routine, and at nightfall he starts a fire. He feeds wood into it intermittently, watches Dennet leave.

For hours, he feels nothing. He watches the fire perform its fervent dance, and there's nothing but that, nothing at his sides, nothing behind him. But then it comes again, like a bolt of lightning searing through him: the awareness of a presence. The certainty of something fissuring his loneliness.

He thinks it another hallucination, at first. But then he thinks that it could be Sera. He turns all around to look, but he finds no one. He turns his gaze to the entrance.

Something pulls him up, makes him walk toward it. At the threshold, enveloped by the cool air, his breath leaves him.

_ Now you are here and I find myself... _ What should he do with himself? The ground crawls up over his boots, welds him to his place.

How many times has she stood there? Talking to a random person, looking over goods at the merchants', always only really for him? It's a sight so familiar that he feels time has turned back on itself and truth is again inside him, caged and clawing. Yet it's also a sight so alien; her face is drenched with tears, her eyes swollen. The darkness is threatening to swallow her up.

His heart shudders. She's so beautiful; he had forgotten somehow how beautiful she is. Nothing's changed inside, and love gushes out like blood from a wound he can't reach. It hurts and it feels wonderful.

She takes small steps towards him. She'll come up and rebuke him. She'll slap him for his insolence.  _ How dare you show concern for me now.  _ She'll leave, then. There's nothing more he wants than for her to leave. He wants her to stay more than he wants to live.

"My lady," he says, reflexively. He'd been moving slow onto 'Anika' once; he loves her name, the way it felt on his tongue and sounded in his voice.

"What should I call you."

_ Nothing. I'm no one. Not to you, not to anyone here _ . And he wants to tell her,  _ Don't ask. Please don't ask me anything. Please. _ And he hears the way she whimpered Blackwall's name as he moved inside her. It was sacrilegious, it was holy: the two people in this world who mean everything, brought together in this way.

She touches him. He's wanted this from the night he first tore himself from her side. He shrinks back.

"Why are you here?" he asks, and then he's broken into pieces in her crushing embrace.

* * *

That it can be like this again. He's delirious with joy, with disbelief. His fingers are slick with her, and she's warm. She wails, "My love. My love." and he realizes that there's no place anywhere but here, nowhere he can be but on top of her, touching her, inside her.

He's done terrible things but why should he live as dead? He's taken the breath from those who deserved better but what kind of a punishment is heartbreak for that? He can be good with her, he can right his wrongs. He can wash the evil from himself and strive to scrub it out anywhere he finds it. If she's there, there's the world. What can't he do?

"Anika," he says and repeats it like a spell. Their bodies melt together. She surges into him, claws at him, and pierces the night with her cries. He loves it so much. He loves her so much. "Anika...Anika...Anika..."

He kisses her as she thrashes in her orgasm, close to his own edge. When he breaks away, lips sliding against her jaw, she says something that tears him apart all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been roughly seventy years since I posted, so here you go: an ancient WIP that I finally dusted off and finished. Frankly, I don't even play DAI anymore, but Anika/Blackwall still has a strange pull; that means I need to write AUs now ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Title and vibe stolen from this [translation](http://www.thehypertexts.com/Mirza%20Ghalib%20English%20Translations%20by%20Michael%20R.%20Burch.htm) of an Urdu poem by Mirza Ghalib:  
>  _Not the blossomings of songs nor the adornments of music:  
>  I am the voice of my own heart breaking._
> 
> _You toy with your long, dark curls  
>  while I remain captive to my dark, pensive thoughts._
> 
> _We congratulate ourselves that we two are different:  
>  that this weakness has not burdened us both with inchoate grief._
> 
> _Now you are here, and I find myself bowing—  
>  as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament._
> 
> _I am a fragment of sound rebounding;  
>  you are the walls impounding my echoes._


End file.
